


let's get rowdy

by galpalaven



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Making Out, because i dont know how to write anything else, hey what if julian had a personality and wasn't just a masochism joke all the time, originally posted for julian's birthday!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 02:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14149860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galpalaven/pseuds/galpalaven
Summary: A rewrite of The Hermit's bar scene so that our favorite doctor doesn't get uhhhhhbeaten and stabbed.





	let's get rowdy

_The Jagged Dagger_  is a place that Nox is absolutely positive she’s never been to in her life, but as a particularly grotesque looking seadog scoops up the glass eye that had rolled out the door and pops it back into the socket without even so much as wiping it off, she has a feeling in her gut that she’s been in places like this before. It’s a fuzzy feeling, dredging up fuzzy memories that dissolve like smoke in the air when she tries to reach for them, but familiarity is a rush in any circumstance these days. She kind of wants to chase it.

“This is my kind of place,” Julian is saying as she eyes the door to the tavern thoughtfully. “What do you say? I bet there are some fans of the Scourge in there.”

She starts a little when Julian reaches out and brushes a loose piece of hair from her eyes, trailing his touch softly down her cheek and curling his fingers fondly under her chin, smiling a little when she looks up at him curiously.

“You’ve been looking a little gray since you cast that spell on my face,” he says quietly. “I’ll get you a drink, maybe a bite to eat. Besides…” he pauses to smirk at her, quirking an eyebrow. “I just can’t pass on a chance to get rowdy.”

She can’t quite stop the laughter that bubbles from her lips at that, ears burning as his eye lights up with barely restrained delight. Giggling as she swats his hand away playfully, she clears her throat as she pretends to harden her gaze, nodding towards the entrance. Julian swoons (she can’t quite tell if he’s faking that or not), trailing after her as she lays a hand on the barely hanging door.

“You want rowdy?” she asks, pausing just to be dramatic. “Let’s get rowdy.”

“Ohh, you  _spoil_  me,” Julian says in a voice that has her stomach flipping with excitement, a smile tugging valiantly at her lips. “Lead the way.”

Together, they maneuver carefully down the rickety stairs down into a dark, roaring pub. The air is briny and thick with smoke, so much that it makes her want to start coughing. Sniffling a little, trying to acclimatize, her stomach flips again when she feels Julian’s hand come to rest on the small of her back, hidden in the dark room and under his overcoat, but the weight is solid and comforting. A silver tooth whizzes dangerously close to her face from somewhere in front of her, and she flinches into Julian’s side as tankards are smashed against groaning tables the size of a horse.

His hand slips a little further around her, settling on her hip as he chuckles into her hair.

“Mhm, lively energy, lots of movement,” he murmurs, pulling her tighter to his side. “I love it. Think they can fix a good drink?”

They meander over to the bar, careful not to bump into any of the colorful characters at the tables—she has the feeling upsetting anyone here would not be a good idea. Even the Rowdy Raven seemed safer than this place.

…She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying this a little.

“What’ll it be, Nox?” Julian asks, and she notes with a tiny jolt of heat that, while he leans on the bar, his hand still lingers around her waist.

Before she can really get a good look at what the bartender has behind the bar (not that she can make out much in the darkness), a scraggly looking woman beside her grabs a tankard, throws it back—and immediately collapses, stiff as a board.

Feeling daring, and honestly wondering how well her unusually high alcohol tolerance would stand up to that, she smirks and says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

“ _Ohhhh_ , Nox, I could just  _die_ ,” Julian swoons, and his hand moves towards the center of her back as he leans a little farther over the bar and says, “Two of what she had, barkeep.”

The barkeep doesn’t seem particularly impressed with either of them (and she can’t really blame them—Julian might look slightly more like he belongs in this crowd, but her tiny stature and nice clothes swiped from the Palace make her a bit of an eyesore), narrowing their one good eye as they continue to stab the leg of their stool. For whatever reason. They don’t seem like they’re going to even respond until Julian fetches a weighty gold coin from his crow feather waistpurse and slides it across the counter.

“Keep the change,” he says amicably, and when she glances up, he’s wearing his most winning smirk. “Great atmosphere in here.”

As the barkeep turns to fill their order, Julian glances towards her, and his smirk softens just a little when he meets her curious gaze. She nudges her shoulder against his arm just as the barkeep sets two overflowing tankards on the counter, sloshing the unknown drink all over the wood. As she reaches for the drinks, Julian attempts to strike up conversation. “The Coliseum is so empty and quiet… good to see the bloodlust underground is still alive and well.”

She’s carefully trying to balance the drinks (each tankard about the size of her head) as she hears him continue, “Say, remember the Scourge? He was huge. I wonder what he’s up to right now.”

Fairly positive that that line of conversation will get him nowhere, but not caring enough to stop him, she turns and scans the shadows to try and find them a place to sit.

Nox has just spotted a place in the far back corner and begun to move towards it when she trips over a mace that rolls across her path on the way, and she trips and falls right into the biggest, meanest lap in the room. There’s always something unpleasant about landing face first in a stranger’s crotch, but in this place, and having also spilt at least half of both drinks over their head—this situation is getting worse by the second. There’s a rumbling from the stranger’s chest that she’s pretty sure is basically growling, as she slides all the way to the floor while they rise to tower over her.

She opens her mouth to apologize, aware that it will do nothing to alleviate the tension, but the beast of a human being above her cuts her off.

“You worm,” they rumble. “I’m going to kill you.”

She glares up at a pair of angry yellow eyes, lip already curling in a snarl as she opens her mouth to snap back at them, when another familiar voice cuts in.

“You’re going to kill  _me_.”

 _What_.

Nox scrambles to her feet, setting the nearly empty tankards on the nearest table (whose inhabitants have already fled to the other side of the room, it seems), and turns to attempt to save Julian from himself. The stranger turns to look at him, smacking their lips in such a way that Nox feels her stomach turn, and says, “What’d you say?”

“I said if you’re looking to punish somebody, I’m your guy.”

“ _Julian, don’t_ —,” she starts, but she’s apparently already been forgotten as they step closer to him, somehow towering over him by several inches.

“You’re cruisin’ for a deep bruisin’, you woodwind instrument.”

 _Wow_ , she thinks distantly, turning to try and locate the thing that tripped her in the first place.  _That may be the worst threat I’ve ever heard._

She snatches up the mace from the tavern floor, testing the weight in her hand and finding it surprisingly well balanced, as Julian says, “So you  _are_  going to hit me then?”

Nox rolls her eyes as she turns back around, just in time to see the stranger take a swing at Julian’s face, scaly knuckles meeting his head with an unforgiving  _thwack_.

Her handsome idiot keeps talking even as blood starts to run down the side of his face, which at least keeps the stranger’s eyes on him as she sneaks up behind the mountain of a person, drawing the mace up behind her shoulder as Julian says, “Not bad. I was expecting some ringing in my ears, though. Why don’t you do it again?”

The stranger’s arm draws back again, but she brings the mace down heavily on the only part of them she can reach easily—and they collapse with a yell as she’s pretty sure the cracking sound she hears is a bone in their leg. She meets Julian’s startled gaze from where she can see him now as the stranger snarls and lunges for her, apparently not in as much pain as she’d hoped. They grab her by the throat, lifting and pressing her backwards until she ends up bent backwards over a table. Her back aches, and she grips at the massive hand around her windpipe desperately as the stranger’s disgusting breath wafts across her face.

They grin, revealing a mouthful of rotting teeth, and murmur, “Hmm, lookin’ at you up close now, aren’t you a pretty little thing? Maybe I won’t kill you just yet. Could have a little fun with y—“

They don’t get to finish their thought, because Julian grabs the mace she dropped and hits them in the back of the head with a sickening  _thud_. They don’t go down, though, flinching and turning to look back at Julian. The movement has them loosen their grip on her neck, and it gives her just the opening she needs as she inhales deeply and—

 _FWOOSH_.

Flames pour from her lips, catching spectacularly on the alcohol still covering the stranger’s face and she smirks to herself as they stumble away, screaming, trying to touch their face and finding that there is nothing they can do. The crowd of onlookers that had gathered stumbles back, including Julian, and it’s an uncomfortable few seconds before the bartender comes to the rescue with a bucket of dirty water.

There’s a moment of calm as their skin makes a sizzling sound, and Nox doesn’t dare take her attention from them. They raise swollen eyes to her face, and there’s something like contemplation in them—so she smiles her most wicked smile and exhales a cloud of smoke, making sure they can see the rune on her throat. Making sure they know there’s more where that came from.

The stranger, bleeding, burnt, and limping, grumbles something unintelligible under their breath and makes their way towards the back of the bar, shoving through the crowd where they don’t part fast enough and disappearing around the corner.

A pregnant pause follows, where no one seems to know what to do, so Nox does the only thing she can think of—she walks over to where she left her drink and tosses it back in one long swig, draining it and then slamming it on the table when she finishes. Wincing at the burn, but finding that it’s only made her slightly dizzy, she exhales a tiny puff of flame and asks the lingering crowd, “Anyone else?”

There’s a beat, and then the entire tavern erupts into thunderous applause, and her smile turns a little embarrassed as she finally manages to spot Julian again.

He still has blood on his face, but it looks like it’s stopped bleeding now as he seems to stumble back over to her. The patrons return to whatever it was they were doing before the fight erupted, unfazed, and Nox leans against the table, adrenaline pretty much the only thing keeping her standing. She’s only just able to register the strange look on Julian’s face a moment before he grabs her arm and drags her to the stairs. He pulls her up behind him without a word, determined to go—somewhere else, it seems.

She stumbles trying to keep up with his stride and his long, long legs, probably only able to keep up because he’s got a vice-like grip around her wrist. She’s about to ask where the hell they’re going, when he turns suddenly, shoving her into the shadows behind some excess wooden crates inside an unused stall. She’s not afraid of him, but she is a little concerned as they fit perfectly behind one of the stacks, hidden from view. Was he upset with her? Did he see something she should know about?

“Julian? What’s wro—?”

He cuts her off by pinning her roughly against the wall, both hands cupping her jaw fiercely as he bends his neck and kisses her solidly, inhaling sharply through his nose. She blinks a few times before melting against him, eyes fluttering shut as he kisses her, slow and thorough, teeth dragging against her lower lip. His mouth tastes like the blood that was still covering part of his face, but it’s hard to focus on even that as her pulse pounds heavily in her ears. Nox presses up into his kiss, just as desperate as he is now (though, in truth, she’s always just as desperate as he is), wrapping her arms around his back and digging her nails into his shoulders, dragging a quiet groan from his throat.

“ _Ah_ ,” she gasps when his hands slide down her throat. She’s already bruising from where her attacker had caught her around the throat, and Julian breaks away, panting into her lips as he pulls his gloves off.

“Sorry, I just couldn’t wait—I need you,” he rasps into her ear, thumbs under her jaw encouraging her to tilt her head back as his bare hands cup either side of her sore throat gently. The pain begins to fade immediately, and his hands slide from the sides of her neck towards the nape to make room for his mouth as he presses a few hot, open-mouthed kisses along the side of her neck.

She’s panting as she tilts her head farther for him, clutching desperately at his back in an attempt to stay upright as her knees threaten to give out with every touch of his lips.

She’s never seen him like this, taking control and kissing her like he’s indulging in something that’s already his to take—and  _she’s going to lose her mind_ , she thinks as he sinks his teeth into the skin on her neck. She arches against him, hissing quietly, and his mouth leaves a tingling sensation in its wake as he takes the bruises from her as he causes them. She can feel him grin into her skin as she struggles to get closer, but he pulls back a little to look down at her face, hands cupping her cheeks as they both pant in the dim light. 

He presses his forehead to hers after a beat, taking a slower breath, both of them slowly becoming aware of the sounds of people all around them. Still, no one has seen them yet— _no harm, no foul._

“Can I see it?” he asks curiously after a quiet moment, pulling back a little more. “The rune—can I see it?”

She glances down to find his own rune glowing over his windpipe, in the same exact place as hers, bruises on his neck fading as she watches. Nox smiles a little at the open curiosity on his face, and decides to indulge him as her heartbeat slows. Leaning her head back against the wall, she takes a breath and feels the heat rise in her chest, watches the wonder in his eye as he looks down at her throat. She exhales a cloud of smoke through her nose, and he looks absolutely fascinated, tracing the design softly with cool fingers.

“I would’ve picked a fight with random drunk strangers sooner if I knew you’d react like this,” she teases, grinning when the flush on his face deepens as he crosses his arms again.

“It wasn’t… over the line, then?”

She grabs him by the front of his coat and reels him in again, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips.

“Julian, you have permission to kiss me  _whenever_  you feel like it. I promise I absolutely want to kiss you, too, at any given moment.” Tenderly, she reaches up and wipes at the drying blood on his face, frowning a little. “But maybe next time we get into a bar fight, don’t offer yourself up to be killed immediately, yeah? Try fighting back first. Please. For me.”

He pulls a handkerchief from one of his coat pockets, reaching up to wipe his face clean only to have her stop him, taking the cloth to wipe the blood away herself. Bracing his forearm against the wall behind her, he leans down so she can reach, eye slipping shut and sighing quietly.

“Believe it or not, I  _was_  trying to help,” he murmurs after a moment.

She smirks. “Yes, I got that part, but I’m not quite as fragile as you think.”

“I don’t think you’re fragile,” he says immediately, frowning. His expression darkens a little, and he continues, “It’s just that you’re straining your magic muscles, doing all the leg work, and I’m just  _dead_  weight. I can’t  _stand_  it.” His face falls, and he looks—very tired. “I need to be useful.”

Nox clicks her tongue at him, shaking her head and gripping his chin, tilting his face so she can look him dead in the eye.

“You don’t need to be useful, Julian.”

His thick brows draw together at that. “I… don’t follow.”

“You’re worth more to me than a few random acts of usefulness.” She drags her thumb across his bottom lip, watches the way his expression shifts, eyes dropping immediately to her mouth. “You’re worth so much more than that.”

“You’ve lost me,” he says, but she thinks maybe he knows what she means from the strain in his voice. He just doesn’t want to hope.

“I’m only doing all of this because I like you, Pretty Boy,” she says with a grin. “Sometimes I like you so much, it feels like I can’t breathe—and when we’re not hiding behind some boxes in the middle of the Black Market, I’ll tell you some of the reasons  _why_  I like you.”

He lets out a shaky breath, biting at his lip in an attempt to hide his bashful smile. Clearing his throat, he straightens his back, pulling away from her touch as he mumbles, “Well, that’s… sweet of you. And, uh, I’ve got some news for you, too, doll face. I’m only doing all this because I like you, too.”

Nox smiles, something light in her chest at his words. She’d figured that he liked her back, as often as they’ve kissed over the past several days, but hearing it is… very, very nice. (And the pet name has her heart fluttering, too.)

She slides her hands into his, skin against skin for once, and squeezes affectionately.

“Get your gloves and let’s go find what Asra didn’t want us to find so we can clear your name and be done with all of this mess, hmm?”

**Author's Note:**

> I found the original version of this scene fetishy and weird and I don't like! Seeing Julian hurt! Also, what's sexier than watching your gf beat the hell out of some jerk and then down an entire pint of alcohol? Not getting nearly stabbed to death that's for sure.
> 
> Come visit me on [tumblr](http://www.galpalaven.tumblr.com/tagged/my-writing) where I've posted more Arcana fic that I didn't think were long enough for an AO3 post.
> 
> And [here](http://galpalaven.tumblr.com/post/171063899318/a-concept-nox-and-julian-on-a-date-getting) is a drawing of Nox's fire rune by [@wardenchampion](http://www.wardenchampion.tumblr.com)!


End file.
